Next Christmas!
by spacefemme
Summary: A very late Christmas fic in which Della celebrates her first holiday back home and the boys struggle to find her the perfect gift.
1. Chapter 1

Penumbra held the tree upright in the foyer as Della finished fastening it into the stand. Above them, Webby hung paper snowflakes from the ceiling, keeping a grip on the cord of her grappling hook as it hung off of a beam, and back on the ground, Launchpad rifled through some Christmas songbooks by the piano and Donald tried to untangle a string of Christmas lights.

"A-a-and, there. Thanks, Penny," said Della as she stood up to admire the tree. "I gotta say, I missed a lot of things about Earth, but Christmas is definitely toward the top of that list. You know, after my family, and food, and ambient noises."

"Explain this to me again?" said Penny, and hit the trunk once to shake off the remaining snow.

Della started hanging ornaments.

"The short version is, you get together with your family, decorate a tree, eat food, sing carols, and give each other presents," she said, then took a small box out of her pocket. "Lke _this one_ that I got for my best friend!"

Penny eyed it curiously. "What does it do?"

"No, the gift is underneath all this," said Della as she set it under the tree. "You open it on Christmas Day and find out what it is."

"Why?"

"Because it's fun!"

Donald looked away from his mess of lights and went to take the ornaments off of the tree.

"You have to put the lights on first," he said with annoyance.

"Alright," Della said, and rolled her eyes. "Don't have an aneurysm."

"I'm not having an aneurysm!"

"Ah, it's okay. Wouldn't be Christmas without it, anyway."

Donald clenched his jaw and grumbled unintelligibly as he went back to untangling the lights. As quietly as she could, Della started hanging her ornaments in the yarn of his sweater. She'd gotten a good half dozen on there before Huey, Dewey, and Louie walked in. Her eyes lit up when she saw them.

"Aw, you all look so festive!" She ran up and gave the three of them a brief but _very _tight hug. "This is perfect. I finally get to have Christmas with my boys, _and _I get to teach their Aunt Penny all about it!"

"I'm not their aunt," said Penny, for what clearly was not the first time.

"Aunt Goldie used to say the same thing," said Della, just as Scrooge came down the stairs into the foyer with a large crate.

"She's not your aunt," he said sternly.

Della stage-whispered to Penny, "But I think it grew on her."

As Scrooge set the crate down and started unpacking his Santa traps, Penny looked up and observed Webby curiously for a moment before her eyes wandered across the ceiling to a point more directly above her.

"What is that?" she asked, and Della came over to see.

"Mistletoe," she replied.

"What's the purpose?"

Della climbed up the stepladder that had been set up in front of the tree. "This is," she said, and kissed Penny on the cheek before climbing back down.

Penny's eyes widened and her face flushed. Donald and the boys stared at her in surprise, and she reached for the blaster on her belt to signal for them to look away.

A piano chord called Della's attention to Launchpad, who was happily warming up for caroling. She walked over to see the songbooks and noticed the menorah design on his sweater.

"Launchpad," she said. "You celebrate Hanukkah? You can light a menorah in here, if you want."

"Launchpad's not supposed to be near open flames," said Dewey as he and his brothers rifled through the ornament box.

"Especially during the holidays," said Launchpad. "It's okay, though. Mrs. B's gonna make latkes with Christmas dinner."

"Suit yourself," said Della, and picked up a book to flip through. "Hey, do you know 'Holly and the Ivy'?"

"Sure do," he said, and started to play.

Della walked back over to the tree, where Donald had finally starting stringing the lights and the boys had started hanging ornaments, smiles on all their faces. She sang softly as she helped them decorate.

"_The holly and the ivy, when they are both full grown…_"

She picked up another ornament, but stopped as she struggled to remember the next line. Launchpad tried to fill it in.

"_Then the holly and the ivy will both be full grown,_" he sang with confidence.

Della stared at the ornament in her hand. "Been awhile since I've heard this song."

The boys and Donald shared a worried look, and Huey tried to reassure her, "Well, it's not really one of the more well-known carols."

"Oh yeah, I forget the words every year," said Dewey.

"I've never even heard it," said Louie.

"You have," said Donald, struggling to keep a section of string lights hanging on the tree. "You just couldn't understand my singing."

"What?" the boys all said. Donald just sighed.

The family heard Scrooge grunting as he tried to set up a bear trap in front of the fireplace.

"Let me help you with that, Uncle Scrooge," said Della, and ran over to pull out one side of the trap. They managed to get it open, but it snapped back shut a second later, taking hold of Della's prosthetic and flipping her upside down, hanging from the side.

The boys yelped, "Mom!" and rushed toward her, but she simply twisted out of the leg and held onto the wall to prop herself back up.

"It's okay," she said, holding out her free hand to calm them down. "Really, I'm fine. It just got the metal leg. She hopped back to retrieve it and grunted as she tried to pull it out. "Now, let's...see...if we can…ugh."

Penny came and opened the trap back up, pushed it into the fireplace, and handed Della back her leg.

"Thanks, Pen," she said as she reattached it.

A puzzled hum came from the ceiling, and everyone looked up to see Webby staring at her snowflakes, which hadn't covered the distance she had hoped for.

"Guess I didn't space them out enough," she said as she rappelled down to the floor.

"We can always make more," said Della. "I was pretty good at it when I was your age. In fact -" She gasped excitedly. "I think I still have my old paper-slicing thing! I'll go look in the garage."

Once Della was out of the room, Huey took out his spiral notebook from under his hat and flipped it open.

"Mom likes crafts," he said, making a note on the bottom of the page. "That could be helpful."

Donald raised an eyebrow and snatched the notebook from him. "What is this?"

The title of the list stood out immediately: MOM'S PRESENT.

Donald furrowed his brow. "You still haven't gotten her a present?" He heard jingling and finally registered the weight on his sweater. He dropped the notebook and reached back to try and get the ornaments off.

"We've tried," said Dewey. "It's kinda hard to shop for the coolest person on the planet."

"It doesn't have to be perfect," said Webby. "I'm sure she'll like anything you give her!"

"But if it's half-baked, she might think we don't care enough about her to try and do something special," said Huey.

Dewey jumped up on a stepstool in front of the tree and went on, "And that'll just remind her how much of our childhood she missed."

"And then she'll be kicking herself over it even more!"

Dewey pointed emphatically. "With the metal leg!"

"Maybe Webby's right," said Louie as he continued decorating the tree. "Mom said we don't even _have_ to get her a present."

"Parents always say stuff like that," said Huey.

"She's happy enough to be home," said Scrooge. "Just get her _something_. A card, or a clay ornament."

"Mom's been everywhere and done everything," said Dewey. "A homemade ornament's not gonna cut it."

Penny chimed in, "Judging from what she told me - and it was _a lot_ \- Scrooge is probably right. She's pretty excited about this whole 'family Christmas' thing."

Just then, Della came bursting back in carrying a cardboard box.

"Couldn't find the paper-slicing thingy," she called. "But I got something even better!"

"You're on a deadline," Scrooge said quietly to the boys. "Figure something out."

Della set the box on the floor and took out a VHS tape in each hand. "Home movies! Uncle Scrooge, do we have anything to play these on?"

"There's a VCR on the houseboat," said Donald as he tried in vain to get an ornament place in the middle of his back. "I'll get it in a minute."

"Perfect! Everyone else to the TV room!"

She picked the box back up and ran out.


	2. Chapter 2

When Donald came back with the VCR, Louie was kneeling by the box of tapes as Della took out all the ones that were labelled.

"Uncle Donald, get it hooked up to the TV," said Louie. "I wanna see what's on these little old-timey boxes."

"You've seen a VHS tape before," Huey said, unamused.

Louie ignored him. "Hey Penumbra, how do people on the moon watch movies?"

"There's no time for passive entertainment there," she said. "Our daily lives consist only of combat training to fend off moon mites. Or they _did_."

"You're welcome," Della said chipperly.

Huey took out his Junior Woodchuck Guidebook and wrote "moon mites" in the corner of his most recent page. "You guys have to tell me _everything_ you saw on the moon someday."

"Later," said Della as she put a tape into the VCR. She affected a sort of trailer-announcer voice. "Right now, you kids are gonna see me and your uncle Donald _as you never have before_."

"Except for Dewey," Donald muttered.

Della looked up. "What was that?" But there was no answer, and the tape had started to play, so she just sat cross-legged on the floor and watched.

_Donald and Della couldn't have been more than eight. Duckworth was cleaning up scattered wrapping paper from the floor and putting it in a plastic bag, and Donald picked up a wrapped gift from under the tree and brought it to Scrooge, who sat on a big red armchair._

_"This one's from me and Della," he said as Scrooge took the gift and placed it on his lap. He unwrapped it to find a big hardcover book of carols._

_"Isn't that grand," he said, admiring the cover. "Thank you, kids."_

_The twins propped themselves up by either side of the chair to look with him. As he flipped through it, he noticed that some pages had seemingly been torn out._

_"We took out all the Santa songs," said Della._

_"Good thinking," said Scrooge. "What say we put it to use, eh?"_

_The video cut to the piano, where the kids sat on the floor and watched Scrooge play an old, slow, sentimental song. Donald hummed along every now and then, but Della was rather fidgety._

_"Play a fun one, Uncle Scrooge!" she whined._

_He sighed, but did as she said. He flipped to another page and started to play a more uptempo song._

_"We wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas, and a happy new year," the three of them sang. Scrooge tried, but couldn't quite hide his wincing at Donald's voice. Della started singing the next verse - her favorite - before Scrooge even got to the bridge, but he and Donald managed to catch up as she stood up and bounced next to the piano singing about figgy pudding. That part had always made her laugh._

It still did.

_Donald was wearing an uncomfortable looking Christmas sweater that some older relative had definitely pushed on him, and he started scratching around his collar. Della tried to help him by pulling the back of the collar and stretching it over his head so it covered his face. She burst into a fit of giggles, but her brother was less amused and chased her around the foyer without even readjusting his sweater._

_"Dumbella!" he screamed as she kept on laughing. Scrooge stood up from the piano bench and went after them._

_"Alright, none of that!" Somewhere offscreen, he struggled to pull the kids apart after Donald finally caught his sister and the two had started hitting each other. "Hortense, put the blasted camera down and help me handle your kids!"_

The screen went to static, and Della announced to the room, "For the record, I totally won that fight."

"Neither of ya won," said Scrooge, almost scolding. "But I certainly lost. Now, was this the same year you pushed Donald into the tree and knocked the whole thing over?"

"That was the year after," Donald grumbled.

"Aw," Della said, and went to stand next to Donald's chair, smirking. "Aren't you glad we can get back to making memories like that?"

Donald didn't reply, just turned around to show her that the ornament on the middle of his back was still stuck there. She pulled out the hook and hung it from the band on his hat instead, so it fell right between his eyes.

He yelled incomprehensibly, but she didn't even flinch.

"If you're all quite done in here," Beakley said flatly as she entered the room. "Dinner will be served in five minutes. Everyone wash up." She started walking out, but soon turned over her shoulder. "And Donald," she said.

He looked over at her past the bauble in his face.

"If you would refrain from taking anything breakable into the dining room. Thank you."

She was barely three steps out the door when the ornament fell off his hat, rolled off his beak, and shattered on the floor.


	3. Chapter 3

The turkey was finished, and Penny poked at a slice of pumpkin log curiously with her fork, while Della decimated her third piece.

"I thought Earth 'junk food' was to be eaten sparingly," she said.

"Normally, yes," Della said with her mouth full, then swallowed. "We get extra on holidays."

"And why are you using the small bowl on the stick while the others use spears?"

"Tastes better this way," said Della, and scooped up another bite.

"No it doesn't," said Donald, rolling his eyes.

"Donald, you eat it however you want, but ninety-nine percent of desserts are meant to be eaten with a spoon, and the pumpkin log is among them."

"How does that enhance its flavor?" Penny asked.

"I don't know the science behind it. It just does."

Dewey switched his fork for a spoon. He took a bite and his eyes went wide.

"I may never go back," he whispered.

"That's my boy," said Della, and reached over to take Huey's plate from him once he'd had a few bites of his piece. "Sorry, kiddo. Don't want you runnin' wild tonight. See? Mom's learning." She tapped on her temple. "You can have more tomorrow as long as it's daylight."

"That is, if Della doesn't eat it all before you get the chance," Scrooge muttered.

"I'm putting it in the fridge for him," Della said defensively. "I'll leave a note."

"You can have it," Huey said with a shrug. "We're gonna make cookies anyway, remember?"

"That's right!" Della grinned and headed for the kitchen. On the way, she said in a sing-songy voice, "Christmas cookies with my Christmas kids!"

"Y'oh boy ," Louie said once she was out of the room. "Christmas is turning Mom into a nerd."

"Be nice," said Beakley, swatting him with a napkin as she cleared the table. "And all of you, go help her with the dishes." She handed Louie a stack of dessert plates.

"Isn't that literally what you get paid for?" he said.

"Webby and I have to reset the fairy traps. This is the easiest job I could possibly give you."

"Alright," Louie groaned, getting up from his chair and going to the kitchen while Huey and Dewey collected the rest of the dishes.

* * *

"Alright!" Della said enthusiastically as she scraped the food off the plates and into the trash. "The Ducks are on dish duty!"

The boys stood on three chairs in front of the counter, and she handed them each a sponge.

"Huey, you wash the silverware, Louie, you do plates, Dewey, you do the glasses." She opened a drawer and took out a rag. "And I'll dry!"

The boys all started on their tasks, and Louie raised an eyebrow. "How are you this excited about chores?"

"It's all part of family holidays," she said with a shrug as Huey passed her a couple of forks to dry.

Louie washed and rinsed the first plate and handed it to her, and she wiped down the top side of it with the rag before pausing when she caught her reflection in it. She took a deep breath and smiled slightly at it.

"Hey," Huey said, looking up at her. "You're looking at your reflection!"

"Huh?" Della jerked her head back up. "Oh, yeah. It's been getting better lately." She glanced back down at the plate and quickly dried the bottom of it before setting it aside on the counter. It still wasn't the easiest thing in the world, but she could manage for more than a few seconds at a time.

Louie looked between his brothers and his mom in confusion, but kept quiet and went back to washing.

A few minutes went by without much talking, and soon Huey finished the silverware and took the rag from Della.

"Here, Mom," he said. "We can take care of the rest. You can go hang out with everybody in the foyer."

"Oh, okay," she said. "If you really don't mind."

"Nah," said Dewey. "Go bug Uncle Donald for us!"

"Sounds like a plan," she called as she ran out the door.

* * *

Donald was the only one in the foyer when Della got there, grumbling as he tried to tune his guitar by the tree. By his feet was a box of ornaments that Della hadn't noticed while they'd been decorating earlier. It was worn at the corners and overstuffed with newspaper.

Della unwrapped a piece of it, and underneath was an arts and crafts project on a string. Three popsicle sticks were glued together over a square of brown construction paper to vaguely resemble a Christmas tree, and in the center was a picture of Louie wearing a Santa hat in his kindergarten classroom. Della ran her thumb over the edges and grinned.

"Donald," she said, startling him enough to snap a string off of his guitar. "Are these the boys' ornaments? Why didn't you take them out earlier?"

"We don't keep them in here," said Donald as he went over to the box and started unwrapping more ornaments to hang up. "They were behind the VCR."

Della hung Louie's popsicle stick ornament and stood back to admire it. "It's so cute I don't even care about the Santa hat."

The boys peeked through the kitchen door and watched her. Louie blushed. Huey took out his notepad and wrote "NO SANTA".

Donald held up a clay ornament with Huey's name scrawled on the back, the front a crude image of Santa Claus with a lopsided face. "What about this one?"

"Hm," Della said, a hand on her chin. "Maybe Scrooge won't recognize it?"

"Nice try," said Scrooge, poking his cane through the loop of string on the ornament and dropping it back in the box. Donald quickly crouched down to carefully wrap it in newspaper again. "But no amount of adorable shoddiness will make me accept a likeness of that sleigh-bellin' sumph in my house!"

"Fair point," said Della. "What else have we got?" She moved to pick up another wad of newspaper, but stopped at the sound of Penny's blaster coming from the TV room.


End file.
